Seahawks respond to Carrol, who’s 65, but ‘acts like he’s 20′

Share this:

JERSEY CITY, N.J. – These are facts, supported by record books and Google searches:

If the Seattle Seahawks pull it off Sunday, Pete Carroll will become the third coach to win a Super Bowl and the college national championship.

If his ferocious Seattle defense bests the historically electric Denver offense, Carroll, 62, will also become the third-oldest coach to claim the Lombardi Trophy.

This is not fact, but it’s awfully difficult to argue: Carroll, second oldest among NFL head coaches, is the league’s most “new school” coach.

Although he doesn’t phrase it like that.

“I don’t know if it’s modern; it’s just the only way I know how to do it,” Carroll said Thursday. “I understand that the guys do respond pretty favorably. They like what’s going on. They respond by the way they practice and the way they play. We’ve created a culture that hopefully allows for guys to be at their best.”

Making football fun

The Seahawks have basketball hoops in their meeting rooms. They watch funny videos before meetings. They have competition drills during practice “just to have fun,” according to wide receiver Doug Baldwin. Seattle-based rapper Macklemore was in the team’s locker room after it won the NFC Championship Game. Drake, another hip-hop star, stopped by a Seahawks practice in December.

“(Carroll) is 65 years old,” Baldwin said at Tuesday’s media day. “But he acts like he’s 20.”

That’s not to say Carroll runs practice like it’s middle-school recess, because lost in this story is the fact Seattle has the stingiest defense in the NFL. There’s a reason for that, and it isn’t because the Seahawks play kickball on Thursdays.

“It’s interesting to hear so many ways to explain it – laid-back, free willy, doing whatever. We run this program with extraordinary standards in how we prepare every day, with expectations that they’re going to be working their tails off every single step of every single practice,” Carroll said. “When we get in games, it’s not a different situation for us. I don’t believe that people are very good at turning things on and off when it comes to intensity. You’re either on or you’re not.”

Bud Grant his mentor

This week, Carroll frequently has been asked about former Minnesota Vikings coach Bud Grant, one of his mentors. He still keeps in touch with Grant, 86. They last spoke before the regular-season game against New Orleans, which the Seahawks easily won 34-7.

“(Grant’s) confidence that he exudes going with what he believes in his gut was extraordinary to me to see,” Carroll said. “He didn’t care what anybody else thought, and he was really clear about how he expressed that. … He talked that way, and he taught me that. He lived that way. That was really what I came out of there with: a greater sense of confidence that I could get this done in time if I could get to what was really important to me.”

Twenty years ago this month, a 42-year-old Carroll was given his first chance to get it done. He was promoted to head coach of the New York Jets, replacing Bruce Coslet. According to a 2000 Los Angeles Times story, Carroll painted a basketball court in the parking lot of the team’s practice facility, where he and his assistants would regularly play pickup games.

But still, the Jets would lose.

Carroll was fired after one 6-10 season in New York, hired by New England and eventually fired there. He was the bridge between Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick, two of the game’s most successful old-school coaches.

In 2001, Carroll wound up at Southern California, where a players’ atmosphere and some dynamite recruiting created college football’s unquestioned King of the Decade.

But in the back of his mind, Carroll “wanted to see what would happen if we translated this to the NFL.” In 2010, NCAA sanctions from the Reggie Bush scandal were looming, and the Seattle job was open. And quite appealing.

It has taken Carroll four years to transform the Seahawks from a 7-9 playoff team in a laughable division to a 13-3 Super Bowl qualifier.

He has done it his way, just as Grant did years ago. And he has done it with 21 undrafted free agents on this season’s roster.

Players like his style

One of them – Baldwin – recalled meeting Carroll when he was brought in after the 2011 lockout.

“As an undrafted guy, I didn’t think anybody was going to know my name,” Baldwin said. “(Carroll) came up to me right away and shook my hand, knew my name, and made me feel really welcome. From that moment forward, it’s been nothing but positive. … His first impression is what he’s given me the whole time.”

Sometimes first impressions last. Other times, initial impressions – say with the Jets and Patriots – don’t tell the full story.

Another fact: If the Seahawks prevail Sunday, Carroll will become the first man to win a Super Bowl after twice being fired as an NFL head coach.